Hestrie Cloete, South Africa’s golden girl at the Athens Olympics, had to bus into the athlete’s Olympic Village when she was left stranded at the airport in a culmination of communication problems in the SA Olympic camp.
The charred bodies of women and children lay heaped inside a dozen torched huts in the Gatumba refugee camp in Burundi on Saturday, where nearly 159 people were killed in an overnight attack. The victims were shot, hacked to death with machetes or burnt inside their homes, during a raid on the camp near the capital Bujumbura.
More than 200 of South Africa’s greatest inventions went on show this weekend in an exhibition designed to highlight innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. The inventions and innovations range from the Kreepy Krauly pool cleaner to the noisy vuvuzela and the famous dolos concrete structures which protect harbours and seawalls worldwide.
Zambia’s former finance minister Katele Kalumba and three ex-senior treasury officials have been arrested and charged with abuse of office and corruption involving -million. Kalumba has been included in the ongoing corruption case where ex-aides of former president Frederick Chiluba have been put on trial on corruption charges.
Former South African president FW de Klerk has relinquished his New National Party membership saying the party had gone too far in merging with the ruling African National Congress. ”I am not considering joining the ANC and shall decide in due course for what party I shall vote,” he said.
Japan’s second largest power company is to close all 11 of its nuclear reactors to carry out urgent safety checks after an accident at one of its plants on Monday in which four workers died and seven others were injured.
For years the only link between Ireland and the world’s most famous sunken lost city was the Irish-American actor Patrick Duffy, who played the Man from Atlantis in the cult 70s television show. But now a geographer has claimed that Atlantis was actually Ireland.
A contingent of Rwandan troops heads to Darfur this weekend — the first foreign soldiers to deploy in western Sudan, where thousands of people have been killed in violence some are calling a genocide. Their main mission is to protect the 80 African Union observers already in the country.
The Springboks have adopted a new motto ahead of the all-important Vodacom Tri-Nations clash with Australia in Durban next weekend: ”All or nothing.” Following the thrilling 40-26 victory over the All Blacks at Ellis Park on Saturday, the Springboks have a very realistic chance of winning the trophy for only the second time.
Julia Child, the chef who brought the intricacies of French cuisine to American home cooks through her television series and books, has died in her sleep. She was 91. ”America has lost a true national treasure,” Nicholas Latimer, director of publicity for Alfred A Knopf Publishing, said in a statement on Friday.